Links & Auctions

- The ABAA Virtual Book Fair: New York Edition is coming up 9–12 September.

- Oak Knoll Fest XXI will now be held virtually, 28–30 October.

- The Beinecke Library has released results of new scientific analysis of the Vinland Map, and surprise surprise, it's a fake! 

- In Apollo magazine, Michael Prodger on the new addition to the Lambeth Palace Library building.

- Alison Flood has an update in the Guardian on recent research into the Merlin manuscript fragments identified in 2019 in the Bristol central library's collections.

- Julian Harrison writes for the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog on "Richard III: Fact and Fiction."

- Over on the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, "Color separation for Scribner's Magazine 1905," "Perry's 'Narrative' and the battle between its printers," and the news that the blog is being retired.

- The University of St Andrews blog has the fourth and final installment in their series on the USTC: Gender and the Book Trades conference.

- From the Conveyor, a look at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, and "Locating material for the material history of the book."

- Congratulations to John Y. Cole, who retires from the Library of Congress this month. The LOC blog has a Q&A with John.

Upcoming Auctions

- 19th & 20th Century Photographs at Chiswick Auctions on 7 September.

- Literature, Graphics, Ephemera at New England Auctions on 7 September.

- Original Film Posters at Sotheby's London on 7 September.

- Printed Books, Maps & Autographs, 20th Century Photography at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 8–9 September.

- Modern Illustrated Books and Private Press at Forum Auctions on 9 September.

- Rare Books, Manuscripts & Ephemera on 11 September and the Bookworm Sale on 12 September at Addison & Sarova.

Links & Auctions

- The Virtual Ephemera Fair runs through 8 p.m. EDT today (15 August). Coming up next on 1–2 September is the New York City Virtual Book and Ephemera Fair.

- The planned in-person New York fair for September has been cancelled, with a new planned date of April 2022.

- I missed this Atlas Obscura piece last November, looks like: Jeffrey Arlo Brown on "How German Librarians Finally Caught an Elusive Book Thief."

- Over at Penn Today, a look at the Penn Libraries' participation in a multi-institution project to digitize materials documenting early medical education.

- A very happy tenth birthday to The Collation, the excellent Folger blog. They've got a neat "by the numbers" post to celebrate. And also from them this week "Book History, Manuscript Studies, and Navigating Special Collections During COVID-19."

- On the University of Glasgow archives and special collections blog, "The Foulis Brothers Book Receipts Project: how much can an invoice tell us?"

- The St Andrews special collections blog continues their series on the recent USTC conference on gender and the book trades.

- From the Columbia University rare books blog, "Two ancient papyrus fragments and their very modern reunion." 

- Madison Rootenberg Schwartz is in the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight this week.

- The NYPL has acquired a collection of Russian zines.

- Newly published by Quaritch, Arthur Freeman's Historical Forgery in Romanophobe Britain: Robert Ware's Irish Fictions Revisited.

- CNBC will be airing an episode of "Super Heists" this week focusing on the 2004 Transylvania University Library thefts.

Upcoming Auctions

- LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History at Swann Galleries on 19 August.

- Apple and Steve Jobs at RR Auction on 19 August.

- Americana – Travel & Exploration – Space – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 19 August.

- American Historical Ephemera & Photography at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers on 20 August.

Links & Auctions

- The American Philosophical Society has identified a paper copy of the Stone Declaration of Independence facsimile among their holdings.

- Nick Dall writes for the Guardian with more about losses at the University of Cape Town in the April fires, including a collection of rare historical photographs housed in the Department of Biological Sciences. 

- Over at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "The St. Albans Bible," with a brief followup post.

- And from the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Prefacing the Psalms," and a caption competition!

- On the Peter Harrington blog, "Behind the Books: Collecting Chinese books with Matt Wills."

- If ever wondered how the Daily Mail would cover the T.J. Wise forgeries, wonder no more.

- Rare Book School's summer lecture series is underway.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books and Decorative Graphics at Dorotheum on 28 June.

- American Historical Ephemera and Photography at Cowan's Auctions ends on 28 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes (1-288) at Ader on 29 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits & Bibliothèque Victor Segalen at ALDE on 29 June.

- Highlights from the Medical Library of the late James Tait Goodrich, Part III at Bonhams New York ends on 29 June.

- Fine Books & Ephemera at New England Book Auctions on 29 June.

- Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes (289-494) at Ader on 30 June.

- Fine Books & Works on Paper at Chiswick Auctions on 30 June.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 30 June.

- The Curtis Studio at Bonhams Los Angeles on 30 June.

- Céline, 1961-2021 at ALDE on 1 July.

- Charles Carroll's copy of the Stone facsimile Declaration of Independence at Freeman's on 1 July.

- Manuscrits & Livres Anciens et Modernes at Ader on 2 July.

Links & Auctions

- The forged Oath of a Freeman sold at Heritage Auctions last week was acquired by Kenneth and Shirley Rendell for donation to the Grolier Club as part of the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting. Excellent news for the future study and research potential of this piece.

- A UK consortium of libraries and museums will try to raise £15 million to keep the Honresfield Library from auction, and the first sale at Sotheby's scheduled for next month has already been postponed. See Alison Flood's report in the Guardian, and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYTimes.

- The Letterlocking research group gets a nicely-illustrated writeup in BBC Future by Richard Fisher.

- Anna Burgess writes for the Harvard Gazette on the recently-completed Colonial North America at Harvard Library digitization project, which now includes more than 700,000 pages of material.

- On the digitization front, the Clements Library has recently digitized three collections relating to slavery and abolition.

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Medieval Killer Rabbits: When Bunnies Strike Back."

- Coming up next month, "500 Years of Mexican Books: Colonial Book Bibliography in Indigenous Languages."

- Anna Willi's Manual of Roman Everyday Writing: Writing Equipment is available open-access via LatinNow. There's also a PDF.

- Elaine Treharne's recent talk "Uncertainty in Manuscript Technologies and the Potential of Computational Tools" is now available on YouTube, as is Alex Hidalgo's RBS lecture "The Book as Archive."

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Literature at Doyle on 22 June.

- Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs at Lyon & Turnbull on 23 June.

- Éditions Originales Littéraires du XIXe au XXIe Siècle at ALDE on 24 June.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Photographs at Bonhams London on 24 June.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 24 June.

 - Illustration Art at Swann Galleries on 24 June.

- Antiquarian Books with Manuscripts and Food & Drink at PBA Galleries on 24 June.

- Livres et Manuscrits de Cervantès à Houllebecq at Sotheby's Paris ends on 25 June.

- American Historical Ephemera & Photography at Cowan's on 25 June.

- The Gentleman's Library & Bindery at Addison & Sarova on 26 June.

- Rare Books, Antiquarian Maps, and Manuscripts at Second Story Books on 26 June.

- Bookworm Auction at Addison & Sarova on 27 June.

Links & Auctions (and an Update)

Update, of particular relevance to the many of you who get these posts via email: Feedburner, which has managed the email subscriptions for this blog for I don't know how long, is going away next month (don't get me started, I'm still mad that Google Reader went away and that happened in 2013). Anyway, I've transitioned the email subscriptions over to follow.it, so you should just keep getting emails as usual (though they may start looking slightly different). You can also set up different bells and whistles, if you prefer. With any luck at all, the transition will be relatively seamless.

-Coming up on 22 June, the Bookplate Society hosts a Zoom talk by Anthony Pincott, "Ex-Libris Art & Provenance: The Fascination of Bookplates." Register at the link.

- Over at Bijzondere Collecties, "Gauffering the Edges," an excellent look at gauffering.

- Heritage Auctions had a very interesting roundtable discussion prior to the sale of the forged Oath of a Freeman last week. I learned some things about the Hofmann forgeries I hadn't known before. The forged oath sold for $52,500 last week (and I'd be very interested to know the buyer if they wish to reveal themselves!).

- From Swann Galleries, the first part of "For Love of the King: the Wild Story of a Forged Wilde Story."

- Rebecca Rego Barry has the summer 2021 books on books roundup over at the Fine Books Blog.

Upcoming Auctions

- Guerre de 1870–1871 (Aristophil 41) at Aguttes on 14 June.

- Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 15 June.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 16 June.

- Private Press, Children's & Illustrated Books and Modern First Editions at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 17 June.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams New York on 17 June.

- Fine Books & Autographs at Swann Galleries on 17 June.

- Books in All Fields – Americana – Maps at PBA Galleries on 17 June.

- Rare Antiquarian and Illustrated Books at Donald Heald Auctions on 19 June.

Links & Auctions

- Mary Hamilton French writes for the NEDCC blog about her recent work to conserve a fifteenth-century manuscript Vitae Augustini from the BPL collections. A really excellent and beautifully illustrated walk through the process.

- News that the Honresfield Library will be sold at Sotheby's across three auctions (see the introduction to the first part, scheduled to be sold in July) prompted much coverage: see Alison Flood's piece in the Guardian and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYT. A followup piece by Alison Flood for the Guardian reports on the immediate calls from the Brontë Society and others for the collection to be kept intact and made publicly available for research. See also Francesca Collins' post for the Museums Association.

- Stephen Hawking's Cambridge papers and personal memorabilia have been acquired for the British nation, and will be housed at the Cambridge University Library and the Science Museum.

- Hobby Lobby has sued Dirk Obbink to recover some of the $7 million reportedly paid for ancient gospel fragments which Obbink allegedly had stolen. See also the official complaint.

- The National Library of Scotland has acquired a sixteenth-century Perthshire manuscript, the "Chronicle of Foringall."

- Candida Moss has a roundup of some recent book thefts from libraries in the Daily Beast.

- Chiara Betti writes for the St John's College blog about the collection of some 750 copper plates given by Richard Rawlinson to the Bodleian Library. This is an introductory post about a new project to really study this collection for the first time, which promises to be extremely useful!

- From Aaron Pratt, "Paper Pitfalls."

- Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library has acquired a rare early Civil War lithograph of Jefferson Davis metamorphosed into a donkey.

- The Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog has a roundup of their Pandemic-Times webinars, and also a new post on "Typographic Necrology."

- From Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A New Leaf from the Pontigny Copy of Florus & Didymus" and "Otto Ege's 12th-Century Italian Gospel Lectionary."

- Heather Wolfe writes for The Collation, "Malicious Teaseling: Or, how a simple reference question got complicated."

- Over on the Bodleian blog, "A Pirate's Life?"

- The Franz Kafka collection held by the National Library of Israel is now online in digital form.

- From Adam Smyth at TEXT!, "Family Bibles."

- The Middle Temple Library has another provenance mystery for this month.

Upcoming Auctions

- Music: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 8 June.

- Early Printing, Americana (Printed and Manuscript) at New England Book Auctions on 8 June.

- TCM Presents ... Mavericks at Bonhams Los Angeles on 8 June.

- Travel Books, Maps & Atlases at Forum Auctions on 9 June.

- Rare Books Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on 9–10 June.

- Americana – Zamorano 80 – Travel – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 10 June.

- Bibliothèque Théâtrale du Comte Emmanuel D'André – Livres at Manuscrits at Binoche et Giquello on 11 June.

- Summer Auction at Arader Galleries on 12 June.

Links & Auctions

- Heritage Auctions will sell Mark Hofmann's forgery of the Freeman's Oath in their 9–10 June Rare Books Signature Auction.

- Some good coverage this week of Kate McCaffrey's recent research on Anne Boleyn's prayerbook: see the Hever Castle announcement, McCaffrey's research overview, and stories in artnet and Smithsonian.

- From Peter Kidd at Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "Otto Ege's Copy of Thomas Aquinas on Peter Lombard's Sentences."

- Over on Books and Borrowing, "A First Look at the University of Edinburgh Library Borrowers' Receipt Books."

- On the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Thomas Becket: Manuscripts Showing the Making of a Saint."

- Oliver B. Pollak writes for the Oak Knoll blog on "Becoming a Bibliophile, 1950–1970."

- Sarah Lindenbaum has a look at a 1633 copy of Henry Isaacson's Saturni Ephemerides for Early Modern Female Book Ownership.

- Jim Green will be on the History of Libraries seminar on 1 June to discuss "Memory, Reason, Imagination: Subject Classification in the 1789 Catalogue of the Library Company of Philadelphia." Free registration here.

- Alex Shepard writes for the New Republic about the ongoing controversy over Philip Roth's literary estate and personal papers.

Upcoming Auctions

- Science: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 25 May.

- Historic Manuscripts & Rare Books at Skinner ends on 25 May.

- Bibliothèque Cynégétique Jean-Pierre Lemanissier at ALDE ends on 26–27 May.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Artwork, Comic Art at University Archives on 26 May.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 27 May.

- Fine Photographs at Swann Galleries on 27 May.

- Literature – Beats & the Counterculture – Illustrated Books at PBA Galleries on 28 May.

Links & Auctions

- Reminder that the Western States Book & Paper Fair is coming up 29 April–1 May.

- Entries for the 2021 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest are now being accepted, and entries for the 2021 Honey & Wax Prize are due on 1 June.

- The BBC reports on new research which attempts to identify scribal hands in the Great Isaiah Scroll. See also the original paper in PLoS ONE.

- There was terrible news from Cape Town this week, where a wildfire destroyed the University of Cape Town's Jagger Reading Room. The full extent of the damage to collections is not yet confirmed, but some rare and unique materials are known to have been lost. 

- An excerpt from Ross King's The Bookseller of Florence was in LitHub this week.

- Now online at Lost Manuscripts, Neil Ker's catalogue of pastedowns found in Oxford bindings (PoxBo).

- From Roger Wieck on the Morgan blog, "Master of Catherine of Cleves: Acquisition of a Previously Unknown Illumination."

- APHA has launched a YouTube channel.

- Rebecca Rego Barry notes a copy of Wharton's Ethan Frome inscribed by the author to her butler, Alfred White, currently offered for sale by Carpe Librum. The description reports that no other signed copies of this book are known.

- Lauren Hewes reports a very neat AAS acquisition: an 1858 set of foldable brass bookmarks!

- Swann Galleries will offer a selection of deaccessioned duplicates from the Letterform Archive on 12 May.

- Doyle has some books from William Safire's library in several of their upcoming sales. Rebecca Rego Barry notes some highlights.

- From Giuseppe Bruno-Chomin for the JHIBlog, "Italian 'Secrets,' Forgery(?), and a Pearly Obsession."

- A copy of Eikon Basilike is in the Early Modern Female Book Ownership spotlight this week.

Upcoming Auctions

- Collection of a Connoisseur: History in Manuscript, Part 2 at Sotheby's London ends on 27 April.

- Books, Manuscripts, Photographs: From the Middle Ages to the Moon at Christie's London ends on 28 April.

- Two Autograph Collections at Lion Heart Autographs on 28 April. 

- Atlas, Cartes & Livres de Voyage at ALDE on 29 April.

- Antiquarian and Modern Literature and Illustrated Books at Forum Auctions on 29 April.

- Rare Books, Autographs & Maps at Doyle on 29 April.

- California and the West. With Americana – Travel – Maps at PBA Galleries on 29 April.

Links & Auctions

- The Spring Break for Booklovers virtual fair continues through 12 April over on Getman's Virtual.

- Many congratulations to Julie Nelson Davis, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow!

- From Erin Blake at The Collation, "Documenting mistakes in our documentation."

- The Grolier Club is the lucky recipient of Kenneth W. Rendell and Shirley McNerney's Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting.

- Peter Kidd continues his series on the dispersal of the Rodolphe Kann collection with posts on the illuminated leaves and cuttings, and an illustrated list of same.

- The Connecticut State Library has added some new digitized newspapers to Chronicling America.

- From Swann Galleries, "Lies in Publishing: Collecting False Imprints."

- Over on the AAS blog, "Continuing the Conversation: Jessica Pressman Answers Your Questions on Bookishness."

- The Middle Temple Library has a new provenance mystery for us this month.

- From the University of St Andrews blog, "Benjamin Franklin as Printer."

- Over on the Getty blog, "Female Expression in a 15th-Century Manuscript."

- David Keys writes for the Independent about recent research into the written Aztec language by Gordon Whittaker, whose book Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs is just out from the University of California Press.

Upcoming Auctions

- The Passion of American Collectors: Property of Barbara and Ira Lipman | Highly Important Printed and Manuscript Americana at Sotheby's New York on 13 April.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 14 April.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 15 April.

- Printed & Manuscript Americana at Swann Galleries on 15 April.

- Fine Press – Fine Bindings – Fine Books at PBA Galleries on 15 April.

Links, Reviews & Auctions

- Starting on Friday, 9 April, Spring Break for Booklovers, on Getman's Virtual.

- Amanda Bartlett writes for SFGATE on Brian Cassidy's recent identification of a previously unknown early typed draft of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." See also Alison Flood's piece in the Guardian.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "Easter Sunday in the Sherborne Missal" and "Alas, poor Hamlet."

- A conversation between Jason Dean and Nick Wilding about the Linda Hall Library's copy of Sidereus Nuncius is now available on Vimeo.

- Over on the Rylands Blog, "Photographing the Simon Papers," walking through the process of digitizing a collection of complex bound volumes and "A Passover Haggadah Painted by an Englishman?"

- More from Jennifer Schuessler on the recent questions about the Deuteronomy fragments in "A Biblical Mystery and a Reporting Odyssey."

- Also from the Rylands orbit, Kirat Sagoo looks back at the Guardian's San Serriffe prank.

- From the Getty, Julie Jaskol and antiquities curator Kenneth Lapatin talk through the process of confirming a forged gemstone.

- The Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog highlights a binding by Parisian binder Madeleine Gras.

- From the OUP blog, "New discoveries about John Shakespeare."

- The Grolier Club has been given a book from FDR's library.

- Over at American Book Collecting, "Nettie Lee Benson on the Development of Special Collections."

- At Books and Borrowing, "A Painted Library Parthenon for the Athens of the North."

Reviews

- Megan Rosenbloom's Dark Archives; review by Christine Jacobsen in the LARB.

- Michael Blanding's North by Shakespeare; review by Stephen Donoghue in the CSM.

I finally had a chance to sit down this weekend with Kurt Zimmerman's new collection of biblio-essays, Rare Book Hunting, and enjoyed it immensely. It is a delightful account of Kurt's adventures with books, from his time in the auction business to his visits with booksellers and of course some excellent stories about great biblio-finds. Some of his bibliographical association copies are the stuff that makes anyone who enjoys such things simultaneously so happy they exist and also so jealous that somebody else got to them first! 

Particularly valuable is Kurt's "Auction House Adventures," his memoir of working at San Francisco auction house (then) Butterfield & Butterfield. As he notes in the short introductory note, accounts about life in the book auction world are far rarer than they should be, so having his story between two covers is a very important addition to the genre. 

Kurt's tales all make clear the most important part of book collecting: the people, past and present. His "A Book I Shouldn't Have Had Yet" (another version of which is on his blog) is profoundly moving, and his stories of Texas bookselling greats Dorothy Sloan and Larry McMurtry, both of whom died in March, are timely indeed. I cannot wait to return to a time when we are able to have a great crowd of biblio-humans in a big room again: if nothing else, we need the opportunity for Kurt to find more great books and tell more great stories!

Upcoming Auctions

- Livres Anciens du XVIe au XIXe Siècle at ALDE on 7 April.

- Printed Books & Manuscripts, Autographs & Documents, Maps & Prints, The Bookbindery of Faith Shannon at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 7–8 April.

- Early Printed Books at Swann Galleries on 8 April.

Links & Auctions

- Marc Wortman writes for the April issue of Vanity Fair, "Cracking the Case of London's Elusive, Acrobatic Rare-Book Thieves."

- From the UK National Archives blog, "Playing cards captured at sea," highlighting a cool find in the Prize Papers collection.

- Over at Books and Borrowing, "Women Borrowers at Westerkirk Library."

- The Princeton University Library blog highlights Emma Sarconi's work on the Her Book project, identifying and cataloging ownership markings by women in books from the Princeton collections.

- Over on the FB&C blog, Emily Wells is in the "Bright Young Collectors" spotlight.

- A new edition of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series will include the author's own illustrations.

- Charlotte Higgins reports for the Guardian on the retraction of a chapter about the provenance of Sappho fragments announced in 2014.

- Meghan Constantinou will give a talk on 4 May, "Private Library Catalogues as Sources for Library History: An Apprecation." Free but registration is required.

- In El Pais, "Why Spain's National Library covered up the theft of a Galileo original work."

- The Boston Public Library has received a $2.1 million gift for preservation and cataloging of some 400,000 volumes. Excellent news!

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "The colour purple."

- Stephen Durchslag has announced that he will bequeath his collection of some 4,500 Passover Haggadot to the University of Chicago. The bequest also includes support for cataloging, endowed collections funds, a curatorship, and fellowships.

Upcoming Auctions

- Autographes & Manuscrits at Aguttes on 29 March.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts Online at Bonhams ends on 30 March.

- Rare Books and Incunabula at Lark Mason Associates ends on 30 March.

- Travel & Sporting Books from the Library of Arnold "Jake" Johnson on 30 March.

- Fine Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams London on 31 March.

- Americana – Travel & Exploration – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 1 April.

Links & Auctions

One hears of significant rumblings from within the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS) and looks forward to learning more ... 

- Next up on Getman's Virtual, the Ephemera Society's Virtual Ephemera Fair, on 20–22 March.

- Catherine Sutherland at Magdalene College Cambridge has identified books in the collections annotated by Mary Astell!

- The great researchers at Letterlocking have managed to virtually read a folded, unopened letter. See their article in Nature Communications.

- From Jennifer Schuessler for the NYTimes, "Is a Long-Dismissed Forgery Actually the Oldest Known Biblical Manuscript?" See also Idan Dershowitz's article "The Valediction of Moses: New Evidence on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments."

- From Peter Kidd, "A Byzantine Miniature on a Leaf from the Forrer Collection" and "One More Montbaston Bible Historiale Cutting."

- Over at Book Historia, "Books Without Books: Digitally Communicating Materiality."

- Anne Bromer writes on "Easter Island and its Books."

- Jim Hinck has a viaLibri Beta update for us.

- From the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, "The curious AB-script."

- New from the Internet Archive, "Search Scholarly Materials Preserved in the Internet Archive."

Upcoming Auctions

- Lettres & Autographes Manuscrits at Ader on 16 March.

- Bibliothèque Gastronomique & Oenologique de Max Cointreau at ALDE on 17 March.

- Bibliothèque Humaniste Max Cointreau at ALDE on 18 March.

- Autographes & Manuscrits at Aguttes on 18 March.

- Maps and Atlases at Forum Auctions on 18 March.

- Fine Literature with Beats, Bukowski & the Counterculture at PBA Galleries on 18 March.

- Literature from a Private New Orleans Collection at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers on 19 March.

Links & Auctions

- The California Virtual Book Fair continues through today!

- From Caroline Duroselle-Melish for The Collation, "Marks on Bindings."

- The BL's Endangered Archives blog has announced three new tranches of digitized material, from Laos, Sri Lanka, and Bulgaria.

- Thanks to Emma Sarconi for pointing out on Twitter a neat newly digitized reading notebook from the Princeton collections, that of Countess Lydia Rostopchina.

- New on Netflix, "Murder Among the Mormons," focusing on the life, forgeries, and other crimes of Mark Hofmann. It is leading to a number of stories in the press about the events depicted in the film, among them this one from the Deseret News.

Upcoming Auctions

- Bibliothèque Maurice Houdayer, Première partie at Artcurial on 9 March.

- Printed Books, Maps & Documents, The Kenn Back Polar Library at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 10 March.

- Editions and Works on Paper, 1500–2020 at Forum Auctions on 11 March.

- Fine Photographs at Swann Galleries on 11 March.

- Fine Books & Manuscripts at Potter & Potter Auctions on 13 March.

Links, Reviews & Auctions

- From Erin Blake for The Collation, "Rediscovering Three-Cornered Notes."

- Over on the BL's Medieval Manuscripts blog, it's the "Great Medieval Bake Off"!

- Mary Yordy writes for the Duke Libraries Preservation blog, "Sewing Models: Pandemic Edition."

- New from the Courtauld Institute, an open-access book edited by Jack Hartnell, "Continuous Page: Scrolls and Scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext."

- From Maddy Smith for the BL's Untold Lives blog, a look at pre-1620 English colonial settlements in North America.

- A 1634 edition of Shakespeare's "Two Noble Kinsmen" has been identified in the collections of the Real Colegio de Escoceses in Salamanca.

- Michael Caines and Lindsey Tyne write for the Morgan Library & Museum blog about "Taming the Wild Things: Storage Considerations for the Bequest of Maurice Sendak."

- Rachel Fletcher is in the "Bright Young Collectors" spotlight.

- "Fakes and Forgeries" over on the Exeter Working Papers in Book History.

- The AbeBooks podcast talked to the warden of Gladstone's Library this week.

- On the Peter Harrington blog, Tomas Elliott on Leibniz and computing.

- Over on Past and Present, a look at the intensely complicated "Conservation of a Fragmentary Early Menagerie Poster."

- Shira Perlmutter has been named the Register of Copyrights.

- From Neely Tucker for the LC blog, "Darkness and Light: The European World of 15th-Century Woodcuts."

- New from Books & Borrowing, "Eighteenth-Century Borrowing from the University of Glasgow."

- Wolf von Lojewski has written an account of his four-decade quest to collect a complete Nuremberg Chronicle by acquiring disbound leaves (scroll down for the English translation).

- The NYU Abu Dhabi Library has acquired the archive of Egyptian poet/doctor/scientist Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi.

Reviews

- Ariel Sabar's Veritas; review by James Lansdun in the LRB.

- Serena Zabin's The Boston Massacre; review by Breck Baumann for the Colonial Review.

Upcoming Auctions

- Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs, Including the Trevor Dawson Magic Collection at Lyon & Turnbull on 30 September.

- Fine Literature at Doyle on 30 September.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 30 September.

- Fine Golf Books, Clubs & Memorabilia at PBA Galleries on 1 October.

Links & Auctions

- First, there was actually a bit of surprising good news this week: the rare books stolen from a London-area warehouse in early 2017 have been recovered intact in the Romanian county of Neamt.

- Some more good news: the next Getman's Virtual event will be the CABS Virtual Antiquarian Book Fair, on 25–27 September.

- And a bit more, even! The winners of the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest and the Honey & Wax Prize were announced this week.

- The Scottish Borrowers' Registers project will soon include the loans register of Craigston Castle in Turriff, Aberdeenshire.

- The Library of Congress has launched a new tool for searching images in historical newspapers.

- At The Collation, Sujata Iyengar offers "A Guided Tour of an Incunabulum from 1478."

- Rebecca Rego Barry rounds up some new biblio-fiction on the Fine Books Blog.

- On the Shakespeare & Beyond blog, an "Up Close" look at a 1797 caricature of the Shakespeare-forging Ireland family.

- From Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "The Antiphonary of Marguerite de Baconel."

- Swann withdrew a 16th-century manuscript copy of an order to Cortes and Pedro de Alvorado from their 24 September sale after researchers suggested that it had very likely been stolen from the national archives of Mexico.

- Rosa Lyster writes on "Lost Libraries" for the Paris Review.

- A new virtual exhibition focuses on book edges in the KU Leuven libraries and other Belgian collections.

- "Whacky Victorian Imagery" is the order of the day on the Ephemera Society blog.

- Penn's Workshop in the History of Material Texts now has a YouTube channel, and their first talk of the season, on Milton's copy of Shakespeare with Claire Bourne and Jason Scott-Warren, is now available.

- Rare Book School's "Black Print Culture" discussion from earlier this month is also now online.

Upcoming Auctions

- Books & Manuscripts at Artcurial on 22 September.

- Books and Manuscripts at Il Ponte on 22 September.

- A Further Selection of 16th & 17th-Century English Books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library at Forum Auctions on 24 September.

- Printed & Manuscript Americana at Swann Galleries on 24 September. 

- Americana – Travel & Exploration – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 24 September.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 25 September.

VOTE

Links & Auctions

- Good news in the Guardian: the T.S. Eliot estate has stepped up with a £20,000 donation to help the Brontë Parsonage Museum in their fundraising appeal.

- Leo Cadogan writes for Early Modern Female Book Ownership on a volume of Dubreuil's La perspective pratique (1663) inscribed by Lady Louisa August Greville.

 - From Natalie Zacek for the Rylands Library blog, "Rylands Reflects: The Founder and the Fortune."

- Over at Bright Young Librarians, it's Erin Schreiner's turn in the spotlight.

- The Middle Temple Library has another provenance mystery for us this month.

- Rebecca Rego Barry has a Q&A with Bradford Morrow about his new novel The Forger's Daughter, a followup to his earlier The Forgers.

- From Manuscripts and More, "A Brief History of a 1474 Epitome Rarum Romanarum."

- Over on the Morgan Library blog, "Looking at Works of Art on Paper: An Overview of Examination and Imaging Techniques."

- IKEA have published a digital collection of their Swedish catalogs going back to the 1950s.

- From the Columbia RBML blog, a look at their recent project to edit their archival descriptions to identify women by their own names rather than as "Mrs. Such-and-Who."

Upcoming Auctions

- Science Books from the Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune, Part I at Bellmans on 15 September.

- Final Frontier: Space Exploration & Flight Through the Ages - Fact & Fiction at PBA Galleries ends on 17 September.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 17 September.

Links & Auctions

- Over on the Bodleian blog, a look at E.F. Benson's Mapp & Lucia, on the occasion of the book's 100th anniversary.

- Seth James is in the "Bright Young Librarians" spotlight.

- Heritage Auctions will sell books from Justin G. Schiller's collection on 16 December.

- The Philadelphia Print Shop has been acquired by David Mackey and will relocate to Wayne, PA from Chestnut Hill, with a grand reopening in October.

- The Penn Libraries have digitized selections from their Marian Anderson collection.

- Peter Kidd notes that Ariel Sabar's book on the fake Gospel of the Wife of Jesus papyrus, Veritas, has been published.

Upcoming Auctions

- Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts & Historical Photographs at Bonhams on 19 August.

- Rare Autographs, Manuscripts & Books at University Archives on 19 August.

Links, Reviews & Auctions

- The IOBA Virtual Rare Book Fair continues through the end of the weekend - well worth having a look through the many and varied offerings, though I confess, I miss chatting with the booksellers. Much looking forward to when we can all be in the same place again!

- Dan Cohen posted this piece on guidance for reopening library facilities, put together by IFLA. See also WebJunction's information hub.

- Great biblio-human Robin Myers, 94, is walking in her garden to raise money for World Jewish Relief.

- Princeton's fabulous Shakespeare and Company Project is highlighted in the Guardian.

- New from AAS, Black Self-Publishing.

- Ariel Sabar has a piece in the April Atlantic about the Dirk Obbink scandal.

- Michael Vinson is interviewed on the AbeBooks podcast about his new biography of Johnny Jenkins.

- From Simon Beattie, a look at the second issue (1733) of The Catch Club, a collection of humorous songs by English Baroque composers.

- At Early Modern Female Book Ownership, a copy of Hannah Woolley's The Queene-like Closet.

- Over on the University of Glasgow's Special Collections blog, the first installment of a series about the conservation of a 14th-century manuscript of Higden's Polychronicon.

- Distraction reading has increased in the UK, the Guardian reports.

- Research has revealed text on four Dead Sea Scroll parchments in the John Rylands Library previously believed to be blank.

- Sarah McMillan writes for Swann about the mixographia printing process. Hadn't heard of it? Me neither.

- Karin Wulf talked to Whitney Martinko for Smithsonian about "How Historic Preservation Shaped the Early United States."

- UC Berkeley has released a set of responsible access workflows for digitization projects.

- From A Bookhunter on Safari, "A Cambridge Binding – John Bird Hawes."

- Boston Athenaeum programming for the spring has gone virtual.

- The University of Liverpool library has started a blog series taking readers on an A–Z tour of the historic counties of Britain.

- The National Archives has awarded $2.9 million in grants for historical papers publication projects.

- Stephen Grant has posted the third part of his profile of first Folger director William Adams Slade.

- Famed collector Peter Spang has died. He was on the MHS board when I worked there years ago, and was unfailingly kind and interested in what we were up to. Donald Friary has a nice memorial post on Antiques and the Arts Weekly.

Book Reviews

- Nick Gadd's Death of a Typographer; review by Alex Johnson for the Fine Books Blog.

- Kevin Hayes' The Road to Monticello; review by Breck Baumann for the Colonial Review.

Upcoming Auctions

- Churchill in Charge at Sotheby's ends on 20 May.

- Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 21 May.

- Americana from the George M. Steinmetz Collection – Literature – Miscellaneous Books at PBA Galleries ends on 21 May.

- Books and Manuscripts: A Spring Miscellany at Sotheby's ends on 21 May.

- Livres Rares et Manuscrits at Christie's on 27 May.

- Printed Books, Maps & Autographs at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 27–28 May.

- Art & Archaeology of Asia – Travel & Exploration – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 28 May.

- The Martin Magovsky Collection of Children's Books and Books & Manuscripts at Freeman's on 28 May.

Links & Auctions

And I thought things were looking weird last week ... gosh. As you can, please support your local independent, used, and antiquarian booksellers in any way that they need it right now (check their websites and social media for details). Support your local public and academic libraries by strongly encouraging them (if they haven't already) to close for now and carry on their missions remotely. Trust me, there is plenty we librarians can be doing, even without being in close proximity to the books in our collections.

Speaking of which, I should have thought of this sooner, too, but if it's even the tiniest bit of help to anyone (student, teacher, professor, librarian, bookseller), the list of my library is online, and if I have a book that you need to consult for reference, need a citation from, &c., just say the word and I'll be happy to get you whatever information would be useful.

- Several exhibitors at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair (all known to many of us) have tested positive for COVID-19, according to messages sent via the ABAA and ILAB this week. Please be aware of this in case it is relevant to your personal situation, and I know all readers of this blog join me in wishing our friends a speedy recovery.

- The BSA is offering the first in a series of free webinars this week, and are calling for volunteers to help with future installments and/or to assist with other timely programming.

- From my dear friends at LibraryThing, who've been working at home for years, "Work From Home Like LibraryThing Does."

- Many university presses are offering sales on books they were planning to exhibit at conferences this spring and summer; I'm sure there are others, but here are the relevant pages for JHUP and UVA Press.

- Over on the N-YHS blog, "Martha Lamb: New-York Historical Society Pioneer."

- Rebecca Rego Barry writes for CrimeReads: "Carolyn Wells, in the Library, with a Revolver." Rebecca also has a post on the FB&C blog about "Saving the Baskerville Bible."

- From Kyle Clark for the Beyond the Reading Room blog, "Unveiling the Mystery inside a Greek Manuscript Binding."

- The Culture Minister for Wales has placed a temporary export bar on a 15th-century Lewis of Caerleon manuscript to allow a UK buyer to raise the £300,000 required to keep it in the UK.

- Megan Cook and others have been crowd-compiling a spreadsheet of Digital Repositories for Book History Teaching.

- At Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A Dispersed Album of Illuminated Cuttings."

- A number of NYC-based philanthropic organizations have formed the "NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund to support New York City-based social services and arts and cultural organizations that have been affected by the current coronavirus public health crisis."

- More on the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments fakery from the Guardian.

- From Elizabeth DeBold and Heather Wolfe at The Collation, "A Wyncoll's Tale."

- Over on the Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog, "Need a Project, no. 2? Chromolithography." They've also pulled together a collection of links of "Online Content for Printing History and Art History."

- More useful online resources from the Folger, too.

Upcoming Auctions

- Rare Books, Manuscripts & Relics, Forbes Collection Part I, Kerouac Estate Part II at University Archives on 25 March.

- The Birmingham Assay Office Library at Forum Auctions on 26 March.

- Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions on 27 March.

- Rare Books, Manuscripts & Ephemera at Addison & Sarova on 28 March.


Courage, friends. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Links, Auctions & Courage

Well. What a time. Honestly it's sort of hard to know what to say through all this, other than to make a heartfelt offer to help in any way that I can. If there's anything you need that I might be able to help with, I'm here. I'm looking forward to trying some experimental instruction sessions with some classes I've been working with this semester, and hope to be able to continue to make progress on many fronts. This is going to be a challenging time for us all. Courage, friends. Stock up on books. Wash your hands. Wash 'em again. Take care of yourselves. 

- Rebecca Rego Barry is tracking postponed or cancelled book fairs.

- Quite a story from Michael Greshko for National Geographic: testing has reportedly proven that the Dead Sea Scroll fragments acquired for the National Museum of the Bible are all modern forgeries. Much more from Art Fraud Insights, including their full report on the findings. See also, The Lying Pen of Scribes. There are implications here for other fragments in collections around the world.

- From American Book Collecting, "In the Midst of It: A Book Hunter Down the Cataloging Rabbit Hole."

- Some great new marbled paper sample books in the Graphic Arts collection at Princeton.

- The recently-recovered 14th-century Divan of Hafez is scheduled to be sold at Sotheby's on 1 April.

- From Sarah Werner, "notes on feminist bibliography."

- Julie Stoner writes for the LC's maps blog, "Solving a Burning Question."

- Jon Munster is in the "Bright Young Booksellers" spotlight.

- The NYTimes ran an obituary for Andreas Brown of the Gotham Book Mart.

- The Philadelphia Inquirer has a feature on the arrival of the books and other materials from the David Library of the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society.

Upcoming Auctions 

- Backal Collection and Library at Morton Subastas on 17 March.

- Art & Archaeology of Asia – Travel & Exploration – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 19 March.

- Livres Anciens et Modernes at Binoche et Giquello on 20 March.

- The Partridge Fine Arts Research Library at Forum Auctions (online) on 20 March.